Download Spanish Inquisition Reading But it was perhaps inevitable that the

Spanish Inquisition Reading
But it was perhaps inevitable that the waves of anti-Semitism that
swept across medieval Europe would eventually find their way into
Spain. Envy, greed, and gullibility led to rising tensions between
Christians and Jews in the 14th century. During the summer of 1391,
urban mobs in Barcelona and other towns poured into Jewish quarters,
rounded up Jews, and gave them a choice of baptism or death. Most
took baptism. The king of Aragon, who had done his best to stop the
attacks, later reminded his subjects of well-established Church
doctrine on the matter of forced baptisms – they don't count. He
decreed that any Jews who accepted baptism to avoid death could
return to their religion.
But most of these new converts, or conversos, decided to remain
Catholic. There were many reasons for this. Some believed that
apostasy made them unfit to be Jewish. Others worried that returning
to Judaism would leave them vulnerable to future attacks. Still others
saw their baptism as a way to avoid the increasing number of
restrictions and taxes imposed on Jews. As time passed,
the conversos settled into their new religion, becoming just as pious as
other Catholics. Their children were baptized at birth and raised as
Catholics. But they remained in a cultural netherworld. Although
Christian, most conversos still spoke, dressed, and ate like Jews. Many
continued to live in Jewish quarters so as to be near family members.
The presence of conversos had the effect of Christianizing Spanish
Judaism. This in turn led to a steady stream of voluntary conversions
to Catholicism.
In 1414 a debate was held in Tortosa between Christian and Jewish
leaders. Pope Benedict XIII himself attended. On the Christian side
was the papal physician, Jerónimo de Santa Fe, who had recently
converted from Judaism. The debate brought about a wave of new
voluntary conversions. In Aragon alone, 3,000 Jews received baptism.
All of this caused a good deal of tension between those who remained
Jewish and those who became Catholic. Spanish rabbis after 1391 had
considered conversos to be Jews, since they had been forced into
baptism. Yet by 1414, rabbis repeatedly stressed that conversos were
indeed true Christians, since they had voluntarily left Judaism.
By the mid-15th century, a whole new converso culture was flowering
in Spain – Jewish in ethnicity and culture, but Catholic in
religion. Conversos, whether new converts themselves or the
descendants of converts, took enormous pride in that culture. Some
even asserted that they were better than the "Old Christians," since as
Jews they were related by blood to Christ Himself. When
the converso bishop of Burgos, Alonso de Cartagena, prayed the Hail
Mary, he would say with pride, "Holy Mary, Mother of God and my
blood relative, pray for us sinners…"
The expansion of converso wealth and power in Spain led to a
backlash, particularly among aristocratic and middle-class Old
Christians. They resented the arrogance of the conversos and envied
their successes. Several tracts were written demonstrating that
virtually every noble bloodline in Spain had been infiltrated
by conversos. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories abounded.
The conversos, it was said, were part of an elaborate Jewish plot to
take over the Spanish nobility and the Catholic Church, destroying
both from within. The conversos, according to this logic, were not
sincere Christians but secret Jews.
Modern scholarship has definitively
shown that, like most conspiracy
theories, this one was pure
imagination. The vast majority
Spain's Jews had nothing to
of conversos were good Catholics who
fear from the Spanish
simply took pride in their Jewish
Inquisition.
heritage. Surprisingly, many modern
authors – indeed, many Jewish
authors – have embraced these antiSemitic fantasies. It is common today
to hear that the conversos really were secret Jews, struggling to keep
their faith hidden under the tyranny of Catholicism. Even theAmerican
Heritage Dictionary describes "converso " as "a Spanish or Portuguese
Jew who converted outwardly to Christianity in the late Middle Ages so
as to avoid persecution or expulsion, though often continuing to
practice Judaism in secret." This is simply false.
But the constant drumbeat of accusations convinced King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella that the matter of secret Jews should at least be
investigated. Responding to their request, Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull
on November 1, 1478, allowing the crown to form an inquisitorial
tribunal consisting of two or three priests over the age of 40. As was
now the custom, the monarchs would have complete authority over
the inquisitors and the inquisition. Ferdinand, who had many Jews
and conversos in his court, was not at first overly enthusiastic about
the whole thing. Two years elapsed before he finally appointed two
men. Thus began the Spanish Inquisition.
King Ferdinand seems to have believed that the inquiry would turn up
little. He was wrong. A tinderbox of resentment and hatred exploded
across Spain as the enemies of conversos – both Christian and Jewish
– came out of the woodwork to denounce them. Score-settling and
opportunism were the primary motivators. Nevertheless, the sheer
volume of accusations overwhelmed the inquisitors. They asked for
and received more assistants, but the larger the Inquisition became,
the more accusations it received. At last even Ferdinand was
convinced that the problem of secret Jews was real.
In this early stage of the Spanish Inquisition, Old Christians and Jews
used the tribunals as a weapon against their converso enemies. Since
the Inquisition's sole purpose was to investigateconversos, the Old
Christians had nothing to fear from it. Their fidelity to the Catholic
faith was not under investigation (although it was far from pure). As
for the Jews, they were immune to the Inquisition. Remember, the
purpose of an inquisition was to find and correct the lost sheep of
Christ's flock. It had no jurisdiction over other flocks. Those who get
their history from Mel Brooks's History of the World, Part I will perhaps
be surprised to learn that all of those Jews enduring various tortures in
the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition are nothing more than a
product of Brooks's fertile imagination. Spain's Jews had nothing to
fear from the Spanish Inquisition.
In the early, rapidly expanding years, there was plenty of abuse and
confusion. Most accusedconversos were acquitted, but not all. Wellpublicized burnings – often because of blatantly false testimony –
justifiably frightened other conversos. Those with enemies often fled
town before they could be denounced. Everywhere they looked, the
inquisitors found more accusers. As the Inquisition expanded into
Aragon, the hysteria levels reached new heights. Pope Sixtus IV
attempted to put a stop to it. On April 18, 1482, he wrote to the
bishops of Spain: